The High Commission for Reconciliation and Strengthening of National Unity (HCRRUN) announces:
As part of its mission to implement the recommendations of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (CVJR), and more specifically the Community Reparations component (Recommendation No. 54), HCRRUN notes with regret that certain individuals are engaging in acts likely to undermine the policy of peace consolidation, peaceful coexistence and social cohesion.
In particular, HCRRUN notes with bitterness acts of land grabbing of vast expanses of land through illicit sales or purchases of large areas in the prefectures of Blitta, Sotouboua and throughout the territory, where populations who were victims of sociopolitical unrest have been relocated and settled by the Government to live and carry out their socioeconomic activities.
These populations, who aspire only to live on these lands of our common heritage that is Togo, feel once again victimized by disruptions and threats of eviction emanating from the so-called owners of their resettlement sites.
They are in distress and declare “ that they have nowhere else to go “, while HCRRUN, in its strategy for implementing community reparations, is working, thanks to the Government’s efforts and with the support of Togo’s economic partners, to bring them the necessary peace for community life.
Faced with this situation which dangerously undermines the national reconciliation policy underway in our country, HCRRUN formally warns any individual who would undertake to acquire or sell plots of land in these population resettlement areas.
In this regard, HCRRUN calls upon the Courts (Tribunals and Courts) seized with land disputes in these areas as well as the OTR services and the relevant ministerial departments to refrain from any allocation, confirmation or granting of property rights over these sites which are State domains.
HCRRUN counts on the good understanding of the entire population for the benefit of all.
Done in Lomé, July 25, 2020
The President
